


La De Da-Da Day!

by CescaLR



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It, kind of, look i just watched it and I'm Sad, maybe?? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CescaLR/pseuds/CescaLR
Summary: Hey, that ending? Depressing. Here's this. Depressing, but slightly less so.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	La De Da-Da Day!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, that ending? Depressing. Here's this. Depressing, but slightly less so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (someone help me find a better title, plz and thank you, this one is.... terrible)

_"- she's stable -"_

_" - oh thank god -"_

_"- shouldn't have left her alone -"_

_"-It's my -"_

_"-Mr Bridges -"_

_"-Fuck, Colonel, not right -"_

_"-she's not ready -"_

_"-therapy -"_

_"- She's waking up! -"_

_"- Mr Bridges -"_

_"- It's fucking_ **_Paul -"  
_ **

_"- Any more -"  
_

_"-Leave -"_

_"- Help her, please -"_

_"-I'm sorry Emma -"_

_I'm sorry, Emma._

_I'm Sorry, Emma; you lost -_

_you lost -_

* * *

Emma screamed herself hoarse as she bolted upright, and there were people all around her, faces she didn't recognise hidden behind masks and hair beneath those weird opaque... things that surgeons or - or doctors or whatever wear - and she kept screaming, thrashing, because this wasn't _real,_ she remembered - all those people _laughing at her,_ nobody would give her their phone, or - they just _watched_ as she was dragged _offstage -_ and fuck but _offstage,_ she'd never left the theatre, everyone was _dead_ and **_Paul -_**

Emma started crying, big, heaving sobs, interrupting her screaming but not, even a little, her thrashing, and this wasn't advised because her leg wasn't strong yet, it'd take a long time to heal but it would _never_ be the same as it once was - she'd always have a limp, always lean more on her right side - 

Emma exhausted herself, slowly, over the course of the hour, adrenaline leaving her system, the echoes of _it's inevitable_ working their way in.

She'd lost. Like - like _it_ had said, wearing Paul's face with that uncanny smile, because Emma was pretty sure she'd never seen him smile (which is really depressing, when she thinks about it) - but.

She'd lost.

Emma's energy was drained, and the voices swam back into her awareness, like surfacing from the deep blue abyss; voices, normal, human voices, but that didn't mean anything - because the Colonel had sounded human too, and she'd been a lie. The nurse hadn't spoken, and maybe that should've been a clue -

The doctors, or the _hive,_ pinned Emma down to the bed, and waited, but - her energy was drained, and she'd found out earlier, before they'd dragged her off, dragged her away from that horrible loop into something much _worse,_ Emma had found - god. She'd found _it_ was right. It was inevitable, for them.

They'd lost.

The apotheosis had come, and Emma had _fucking_ lost. And Paul was - is dead. Because of course he is; nobody survives a grenade to the face intact, and Emma had been _so stupid_ to even fucking think for a goddamn second that he had.

The voices of the _hive_ are murmuring around her, or - having a conversation. Emma can make out the words, and they sound calm, that lilt to them, that tilt of something soothing, the way a person softens their tone for the scared and frightened injured little kitten they find in an alleyway.

Emma's no injured little fucking kitten. She's tired, but she headbutts the hand that holds three fingers up away from her face.

"We need to put her under again," A voice says.

"Don't you _fucking dare,"_ Emma tries, but it's hoarse and tired.

"Alright," Another voice soothes, and Emma gathers enough saliva up to spit in their face, not that that does much - because of the mask and the goggles and the opaque hair thing, but...

"I deserve that," The _hive_ member says, out of synch, because - no-one else in the room says anything. That's not proof of anything, though, of course not, and Emma shouldn't get her hopes up.

"I cleared you for release, you and Paul, and I should have realised that while physically you're fine, mentally there are some issues that need addressing. And you should've been prepared by the Colonel more than you were for meeting Mr Bridges - Paul - and for that, she has been reprimanded."

Emma wanted to cover her ears, but she can't, because her wrists are in two vice-tight grips, and that might be because she'd punched someone in the dick earlier, or it might be because she'd raked her nails down another hive's face, ripping off their mask and forcing them to exit the room post-haste with angry red marks on their face. 

"Fuck you, you - piece of Alien _shit_ ," Emma managed. Her throat hurt from all the prior screaming.

"I'm not one of them," The _hive_ lied. They looked up at their fellow Alien invaders, and they nodded at each other, not quite in unison - and the hive took off their mask, their goggles, and their hair-thing.

The hive smiled at her, lips closed, eyes falsely kind, and a deep, murky brown. He didn't _look_ dead, but then, Paul hadn't either.

"The fuck you aren't," Emma managed.

"Water," He said, "Here," He picked up a glass from a table just off to the side, and some of the hive manhandled her into a restrained, seated position.

"You've been screaming yourself hoarse for days," The Alien told her. "And I can prove I'm not infected."

Emma narrowed her eyes.

"I mean it," He said, placing the drink down. "Would you rather that first?"

Emma lifted her chin, hesitated, then dropped it, one short, concise nod of affirmation.

The man picked up a scalpel, rolled up his sleeve, took a breath, and winced as the metal dug into his skin. Rich, red blood spilt forth, a small, slight trickle, and very, very human.

"We can all prove ourselves, if you'd like," The alien said, very seriously. Emma didn't trust jack shit about this, but there was that niggling feeling in the back of her head, a stupid, hopeful, sliver of doubt.

The aliens didn't bleed red, once the apotheosis had completed.

"... Go on," Emma said. Each hive - potential hive, she thought, begrudgingly - proved their humanity by spilling slight, small drops of bright red blood, like that what had stained Emma's leg for two whole days before she was rescued.

At least she'd had food, hiding out in the grocery store. It hadn't been easy, dragging out the dead bodies, and she'd spent a long time trying to decontaminate everything, and she hadn't _quiet_ been sure she'd managed it - but she'd had to. Otherwise...

Emma swallowed, as the maybe-not-aliens put plasters over their cuts after disinfecting them. The first 'doctor' or whatever cleaned the scalpel, before opening his mouth to speak to her again.

"Sing." She demanded. "Sing, fucking, I don't know. Just sing." Her hands tightened on nothing. A flash of memory, and her lips twitched down. "The beginning of Moana."

"I've never watched that," One of them protested.

Emma swallowed.

" _Moana, make way, make way,_ right?" Someone sang, high and nasally, terrible and off-key.

"Something about the circle of life?" Another said.

Emma took a breath.

 _"Ooh, the cocanuts, ooh-ooh,_ or... something." The main doctor said. "I was assigned here for - one major reason. I mean, all of us were."

"What was that?" Emma asked.

"I can't sing," One person said.

"I can't dance," Another.

"And I kind of hate music. In general." The main doctor said. "Musicals are pretty shit, really. The only reason I sat through Moana was for my niece."

Emma squeezed her eyes shut. There was no blue in the room, just stark white, and the scrubs were green or pink or off-cream. Everyone's eyes were - green or black or hazel or grey, but no blue. There was no blue in the room anywhere, anywhere at all, and Emma felt foolish, because this just _had_ to be a lie, too.

She just didn't _want_ it to be. Emma sucked in a breath and thought _fuck, no,_ because _wanting things_ was dangerous. Everyone taken had had a _want._ Bill had wanted to reconnect with his daughter. She has no idea what Ted wanted. Hidgens wanted to - either save the world through it being enslaved or run a musical production on broadway, she's not sure, and - well, alright, Emma didn't learn what everyone wanted before it all went to shit, but, she _knew_ Paul hadn't wanted much of anything with any sort of _despiration._ Not until that last moment, and not until - he'd wanted Emma. _Emma I want you, to join the party..._ And - and happiness. Paul wasn't really a happy guy. And Emma had - Emma had given him something like it, even though the situation they'd properly met in had been so _shit._

And that's how they got him. Because he cared. And that's how they'd get her, Emma knows, because she wants him _back._ Just as he was. Even if she hadn't known him before all of this, and sure, things like what has happened change people - but Emma just.

Emma _wants,_ and that's going to kill her.

"Well?" Emma demands. "Don't you _want_ something from me?" Her voice breaks, slightly, on the word _want._

"No," The doctor soothed. "Nothing you aren't comfortable with. We just need you to calm down, so we can explain a few things."

Emma can't keep doing this. She closed her eyes and drops her head, gives up the fight because it's _inevitable,_ isn't it?

"Fine." She looked up. "Fucking - get on with it."

The 'doctors' let go of her, which eased her nerves somewhat - though, given the latex gloves they were all wearing, there wasn't much chance of getting infected through their touch, anyway - and Emma was free to limp along... with her large escort of probably-aliens, following the only doctor who'd directly spoken to her. He led her to a different room; inside was the Colonel, a table, some monitors, and a window. Or, Emma thought, looking through, a one-way mirror.

On the other side, in a room a mirror of this one, just without the window, sat another Colonel... and him.

Emma's breath quickened in her chest, her lungs constricting. He couldn't - god, were they _fucking idiots?_

"You need to get him out of there now -" She said, loudly, stalking towards the mirror. She pressed her hand against it, wary eyes following the infected's every move. 

He looked... no. It was an act, of course, it was. Get your _own_ act fucking _together,_ Perkins.

"Get the other Colonel out of there, now!" Emma snapped, wincing at the pain of her yell as she whipped her head around to look at the Colonel. The woman sighed, sadly, and laid her clasped hands on the desk.

"I would like to apologise, Kelly, for the way I have handled the situation." She sat straight-backed, shoulders aligned perfectly, curly hair tucked away in her hat, small strands still managing to fly free, just like Emma remembered from before It happened.

"You can't fool me _twice,"_ Emma said, shaking her head, moving backwards until she hit the window wall - and then her attention was drawn, stupidly, once again, to the alien on the other side.

Emma stared, for a moment, then squeezed her eyes shut and tore her gaze away, ripping her hand from the glass. She stood facing opposite the Colonel, eyes locked onto the other woman's. There was a wall between her and one alien, there wasn't one in here; this was more important, at that moment.

It _was._

"If I may," The Colonel said, taking out a swiss army knife from her belt. "Prove to you I am as uninfected as yourself, Kelly?"

Emma grit her teeth. "Emma." She stared the woman down.

"Kelly," The Colonel repeated, then held her hand out and dragged the knife blade unflinchingly across the palm. Red blood spurted forth, and Emma stared as the woman took out some bandages and swiftly contained the injury before the blood could spill to the desk. It was a very nice desk, so Emma could see the reason for the Colonel's haste - other than, you know, having a big gash in the palm of her hand.

Emma swallowed, that awful niggling sliver of hope resurfacing in the back of her head. 

"I can sing if you want." The woman said. "Do bear in mind that I have had over a decade of classical training, however, and I thereby doubt it would appease your worries."

Emma bit her lip, for half a second, then shook her head. There was no point. They'd prove themselves aliens eventually, and then Emma... well, she was done for anyway.

Might as well _join the party,_ right? If she's got no choice but to die.

"Alright, gimme your best shot," Emma said, dropping awkwardly down into the chair facing away from the window. "We've done this before."

"Poorly," The Colonel stated. "Yeah, I don't know how we got here from whatever looping hellhole we were _really_ at, but I can't really be bothered to do that again," Emma said, shifting in her seat.

"... About that, Kelly," The Colonel sighed. "I've seen it in my men. Many of them, over the years... events such as the ones you've been through leave a mark."

"Uh, duh," Emma said, gesturing to her leg.

"Not that kind of mark," The Colonel gestured to her head. "A mental one. Invisible, until the wrong buttons are pressed. It would be safe to diagnose you with PTSD, Kelly. What you believed yourself to have experienced most recently was simply an unfortunate manifestation of that. Neither you nor Mr Bridges - Ben - should have met each other at that moment alone. For that I apologise." She laid her hands flat on the desk's smooth surface, her expression serious. "You and Mr. Bridges both have been through more than I can describe. For that reason, you have both been assigned therapy, which you will undergo in safe conditions." She hesitated. "This was considered a safe condition."

"What?" Emma demanded, glancing at the window. "Colonel Schaeffer - _o_ _ne_ punch and it'd smash that window right open - we're _dead meat,_ here, if you aren't already. If _I'm_ not already."

The Colonel nodded, sombre. "And yet... watch - _Paul,_ Emma."

Emma hesitated, but turned her head, almost unwillingly, to look through the window.

He was sat, with his head down, and the Colonel with him was talking, but Emma couldn't hear through the wall what he was saying, and she'd always been really bad at lip-reading. But it, he looked... like Paul, which wasn't saying much, because he'd looked like Paul before he'd requested to _puke in her mouth,_ too.

Eugh. Emma took a moment to shudder in disgust.

"There are some side effects," The Colonel said, at the peripheral of Emma's awareness. "He won't be quite the same as he was before. As the Doctors put it... 'the song is stuck in his head.' The infection ran it's course, so even though his system has been flushed and he's been through the two-week decontamination process, and he bleeds as red as the rest of us, there was some internal damage from the reconstruction..."

Emma wasn't listening. "Uh-huh," She said, at the right moments, along with "Mhmm," and "Right," And "Yeah," But she mostly just - kept her eyes on 'Paul'. Because any moment now he'd - burst into song, or he'd attack the Colonel, and she needed to be aware of it when it happened.

But the minutes ticked by, and it didn't. The Colonel fell silent, and it didn't. An hour passed, and still no sign of aggression, but she knows those things can be patient - the one in Sam was, after all. And Emma's pretty sure Professor Hidgens was infected most of the time they'd been around him - definitely before he injected her. He'd spent a lot of time around the blue shit, right, and it was spores - so he must have. He'd balled it up and held it in his hand for too long. And he'd had the want to save the world and put on a show for thirty years - god. He must have been gone early.

So yes. Emma kept her eyes on Paul until he was taken from the room by - two doctors, unarmed and complete idiots if they weren't just aliens themselves.

Emma's not so sure, anymore. It's tempting, to believe the Colonel. To call it _PTSD,_ to say she was - triggered by fucking just, _seeing Paul,_ and - and to, to - to say it was a hallucination. To bury herself in delusion.

But she can't. Can she?

 _No_. Don't be fucking dumb, Perkins, of course you can't.

"Well, Kelly." The Colonel said, and Emma jolted in her seat. "Jesus!" She said, "God. You scared me."

"Apologies, Kelly." The Colonel tilted her head towards Emma, a sort of weird stiff apology of a movement. "But it is time to meet your therapist. Come with me."

The Colonel stood, back straight, and Emma followed, slouched and limping. The Colonel matched her pace, though, and despite Emma tensing, expecting it to happen, none of the people busying the halls attacked or burst into song and dance. They were just - rushing around, from room to room, like in a normal fucking hospital.

_"- broken leg in ER -"_

_"- Need a surgeon in S-3-oh-Five, stat! -"_

Emma looked around, at the ever-revolving doors and changing mass of people, as they walked through the halls, listening to their normal hospital shit and ever so _minutely_ relaxing in her own skin. They stopped at the elevator, which the Colonel called, and waited for it to reach their floor. It was a short ride down a storey, and they walked through decidedly less busy halls to an office, 'Dr. Lloyd.'

"Here you are." Schaeffer nodded to Emma. "Good luck, Kelly, with your recovery." She snapped her hand up in a salute, which Emma sent back more half-heartedly before the Colonel turned and walked down the hall. Emma was left, alone, with the fervent urge to bolt, outside the door to some asshole psychiatrist's office.

God, this was gonna come out of her non-existent paycheck, wasn't it?

Emma grimaced, then steeled herself and pushed the door open. Might as fucking well, right? She's not gonna get out of this anyway. Either they kill her now or she plays along and they kill her later...

At least this way, she might be able to delude herself into thinking Paul's alright. That he got out alive, and not in itty-bitty pieces pieced together by an alien wearing his _skin._

_(Yeah, probably not.)_

* * *

Paul had his hands tightly clasped to his arms, folded against himself, to stop any subconscious music breaking forth, through the self-imposed silence.

He'd been _fine._ No singing for a whole week, okay, he'd been fine, and then -

" _God fucking damn it,"_ He muttered to himself, and at least it sounded flat, like a normal human tone, and not that strange lilted sing-song nature he'd picked up when _it_ had taken over.

"It's not your fault, Ben," Dr Lloyd said, for the third time in fewer minutes.

"Yes, it fucking is," Paul snapped. "And my name is _Paul."_

"Not now," Dr Lloyd said, clasping his hands together. "We were all aware of side effects, and we should have given Miss Rogers a full mental check before setting her loose on the populace to grow cannabis, but we did not, and for that we take full credit. Similarly, I should have made certain you were at one-hundred per cent, Mr Bridges. I did not, and that is my blunder."

"Okay." Paul shrunk down, further, in his seat, crossed his ankles on the half-plausible chance that he'd start tapping a tune out with his shoes. 

"Okay," He repeated, sitting up again. "Alright, okay. Do I have to fill out a form, or...?"

"It won't be that simple, I'm afraid, Mr Bridges," Dr Lloyd said, "But first, that would really help, yeah." The Doctor took a sheaf of paper out of his desk drawer, and this is something monotonous and easy, something that Paul is very used to;

Paperwork.

Paul sighed in relief, and took the papers, picked up a pen, and started filling out what was required of him.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what i've got so far. Might continue? Might not. I've got a /lot/ of WIPS on my plate, so unless this gains sufficient traction, I'll be focusing on the stuff people really want to see finished first. :) Hope you enjoyed, regardless!


End file.
